


To The Watchtower

by gettingby



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Getting Together, M/M, Mystery, Normal AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28342668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gettingby/pseuds/gettingby
Summary: Simon Snow is in his last year at Watford Academy - his last year at the only home he’s ever known, surrounded by friends who have become family. His last year being a pain in Baz Pitch’s arse.So when he hears that his insufferable roommate is trying to solve a decades-old mystery about their school, he resolves to uncover it first.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 38
Kudos: 100
Collections: Secret Snowflake 2020





	1. The Cupola

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightimedreamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightimedreamer/gifts).



> For nightimedreamer as part of the server Snowflake Exchange.
> 
> You asked for a mystery or dark academia. Here’s a mystery set at a not very dark boarding school, full of personal nostalgia. Merry Christmas! I hope you like it.

I figure it out, like I do with most things, because I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be.

In this case, that place is an old stairwell. It’s been sealed off, maybe because it’s too steep and narrow for a school. Or maybe it was too popular of a snogging spot.

It winds all the way up the seven floors of the main school building where most of our classes are. The doors are covered by drywall, so you can’t get out of them, or even see through them, I don’t need to. I can hear through them perfectly.

Fifth year, Agatha and I had broken up, so I stayed in the dorms over Christmas. That was when I figured out how to climb through the window of the biology lab, along the windowsill, and into the stairwell. I guess when the stairwell was sealed away, its window was left unlocked. Who’d notice it, anyway?

Me, I guess.

When I’m bored, I climb up here for the thrill of it. I don’t actually care much about other people’s business while I’m here - I usually just turn up the volume on my headphones and enjoy the dark and the view. 

In this case, though, I _do_ want to eavesdrop. Agatha’s just dumped me, again. But we’re graduating soon and going to uni, and she says it’s for good this time.

I’m pretty sure she did it because of my roommate.

Even when Agatha and I are taking a break, she still comes to study with my best friend Penny and me in the library at 6pm every Friday. But today, she told me that she couldn’t make it. When I checked Baz’s planner, six to seven pm was marked off, but with no explanation why.

I told Penny about it, and she said that whatever happens is for the best, and I should let sleeping dogs lie. I agreed with her, at first, but then I saw Baz walking into the main building and getting in the elevator.

Baz and I live in Mummers House. All the boys live there, or in the newer dormitory, Fraternity House. All the girls live inside of the main building.

We’re always told to refer to it as the Main Building, but it’s been called the Weeping Tower for as long as anyone remembers.

One side of the Tower is classrooms, and the other side is all dorms. I guess Baz could be going to the classrooms - he is a massive swot - but it’s Friday and the professors have all gone home. I should know; I had to sneak by the classrooms on the biology floor to get here.

So that only leaves the girls’ dorms. Specifically, _Agatha’s_ dorm.

She lives on the fifth floor. I’m on that level of the stairwell, with my ear pressed to the crack on the door. If she’s talking to Baz in the hallway, I’ll be able to hear it. Maybe not if she’s snuck him into her room, but she’s never been a rule breaker in that way. (Unlike Penny, who sneaks into _my_ room all the time, just to get away from her roommate.)

But Baz can be a bad influence. And I wouldn’t want Agatha messing up her behaviour record right when we’re all applying to uni.

At least, that’s what I tell myself as I strain to hear over my own breaths.

Finally, I hear muffled voices. A woman, and a man with a deep, musical rumble. Possibly Agatha, definitely Baz. 

The voices start soft, but slowly grow louder, accompanied by footsteps. 

I exhale when I realise that the woman isn’t Agatha, but Miss Possibelf, the matron in charge of the fifth floor dorms. 

Has she caught him trying to sneak in? God, I hope so.

They pause next to me, and I hear Miss Possibelf chuckle.

”Mister Pitch, while I appreciate your interest in the history of this school, I would suggest focusing on your studies. I’ve been here for thirty years, and I can assure you that there is nothing in that cupola, and no way to get in.”

The cupola...

My heart starts racing, and even though they keep talking - something about Baz’s younger sister getting in trouble for putting a dead rat in another girl’s bed - I rush out the window, across the sill, and back into the lab.

I need to find Penny.

*

“It’s a waste of his time,” she says when I tell her that Baz is trying to break into the cupola. “That’s just a story; no one’s even tried to sneak in for ages. Maybe when my parents were at Watford - but back then, students had a lot of leisure time. Everyone got into uni off the name of Watford instead of merit. Now, we’ve all got a lot of studying to do.” She glares at me over her purple cat-eye glasses.

Ordinarily, Penny would love a good mystery, but it’s fall of eighth year and everyone is stressed about filling out applications, taking exams and impressing professors for recommendations. Plus, her boyfriend Micah just moved here from America for his first year of uni. She acts more serious now because of him.

As far as anyone knows, she’s right about the cupola - even her older brother, Premal, says it’s a dead end. No one’s even thought about it in years.

But Baz doesn’t make decisions on a whim. If he’s trying to get in there, he must have a reason, and he must know a way.

“I can smell your brain overheating from here, Simon,” Penny says. “Forget about the cupola. It’s barelu two feet tall - nothing interesting could fit inside it anyway.”

I huff. “It’s not about what’s in there. Sure, Penny, no one’s tried to sneak in there since your mum was in school, but people still _know_ about it. Everyone’s given up, but if somebody actually managed to get in there? They’d graduate a legend!”

“I don’t care about being a legend. I just want to leave Watford in one piece and make it to uni, and so should you.”

That’s Micah talking, I bet.

Penny knows that Watford Academy means everything to me. 

Everyone loved our school when we were younger. When we first arrived, and saw the ancient oaks on either side of the wrought-iron grate, or admired the ivy creeping down the Astronomy Tower, nobody would breathe a word against it. 

Now the older years pretend that they’re sick of it. “I can’t wait to go to uni,” or “I hate having curfew and being told what to do,” or “I’m eighteen and I can’t even bring a beer onto campus.”

I know that everyone’s going to miss it, though. I know from talking to Elspeth and Premal and others in the years above us that nothing’s the same once you leave. Uni, and the real world it exists in, is big, and scary, and full of people you _haven’t_ seen every day since you were eleven years old. Watford students might pry, gossip, and engage in petty dramas, but we’ll never again make friends like these.

I feel that way, but times one hundred. Other people have something to return to, but Watford is all I have. I’ve got no parents, no siblings, no relatives at all. Watford is my only home, and my classmates and teachers are my only family. After the Leavers’ Ball in June, all of this will disappear.

So I want to make my mark before I graduate. I’m not going to let Baz fucking Pitch be the one who finally sneaks into the cupola. No, that’s going to be me.

*

Penny proofreads my applications and encourages me to keep working until first curfew. I return to Mummers at eight-thirty, attend the dorm meeting, and complete my chores.

Once I’m done, I head to my room.

As soon as I enter, I hear the slap of a book closing. Baz is sitting at his desk, resolutely looking ahead, though there’s nothing in front of him. A leather-bound book sits closed next to him.

“What’s that?”

“It’s nothing,” Baz says, far too quickly. After all these years, I can tell that he’s lying.

“What are you plotting?”

He sighs. “We’re not in a fantasy novel, Snow. Why would I be plotting anything?”

“Then you won’t mind if I take a look at what you’re reading.”

“It’s none of your business,” he snaps. He picks it up and stands, ready to escape the room with the book in hand.

“What are you freaked out about? Is it like, really weird porn?”

“Of course not -” Baz edges towards the door, but I fake left and swipe it out of his hand.

I run to the other side of the room, heart pounding, and leap onto my drawers. I have about three seconds before Baz comes up here and wrestles this back from me, so I dangle it by the front cover and let it fall open.

It’s not actually a book. It’s a picture album. I flip through it - it’s full of photos of the same woman. Here, she’s posing in front of Watford, then standing in one of the hallways. There, she’s sitting in a warm, dark room, and then she’s in front of a Christmas tree with a child.

A baby, really. He’s smiling, his eyes lit up with an innocence and joy I’ve never associated with him. Still, I’d know that face anywhere.

“It’s you,” I say.

I recognise the woman now. She’s Baz’s mum. She used to be the headmistress of Watford, but she died when Baz was still young.

First year, Baz stole the little red ball that I’d brought from the children’s home and dangled it out the window of our room. As I cried and yelled, he said in that obnoxious posh voice of his, “Worried you’ll never get another toy, Snow? Never mind, Christmas is coming up. But - oh - wait. You haven’t got a mummy and daddy, have you?”

I punched him in the face and broke his nose. In his shock, he actually did drop the ball into the moat.

After _that_ , I shouldn’t feel any kind of pity for Baz. But I fall silent and I stare at the photo. His mum’s got specs on. She’s holding a pen, and he’s trying to grab it from her. She looks at him like he holds the world in his tiny, chubby hand.

I can’t imagine having someone like that and then losing her.

“Give it back, you unwashed cretin,” he snaps, reminding me that even the cutest baby can grow to be an absolute twat.

“No,” I say. I jump down just as Baz manages to climb up. (It’s easy for him - he’s all legs.) “You weren’t secretly hiding this because of some _baby pictures_. There’s a plot here!”

“Do you even hear yourself?”

I turn away from baby Baz’s cheeks and flip the rest of the way through the album. 

“There! That’s the cupola!”

I thrust the photo in Baz’s face. It’s his mum, again, but this time she’s standing in front of the wrought iron gate. She’s wearing a jacket with big shoulder pads, and a grey pencil skirt that hits below her knees. Behind her, the school looks the same as it does now, except for some scaffolding against the Weeping Tower, around and just below the cupola.

“I knew that you were up to something! I heard you talking to Miss Possibelf about it yesterday.”

Baz pauses and frowns. “How? Were you in Wellbelove’s room?”

I set down the book and look him in the eye. “Were _you_ in her room?”

“I’ve told her I’m not interested.”

I scoff. No one’s not interested in Agatha.

“Just give it back,” he says, finally. “I know you haven’t got a mother, Snow, but you should really understand how to respect someone else’s at this point.”

I toss it onto his bed, and storm out of the room.

Outside Mummers, the night air is crisp and cool. It’s not second curfew for another half hour. (We’ve got a first curfew to do our chores. Then the seventh and eighth years are allowed out again until half ten, though the younger years aren’t.)

Normally, I’d spend this time with Agatha. Couples are holding hands and walking past me, looking for unoccupied corners to snog in until curfew. Of course, Agatha and I only did _that_ when we first got together. 

No - right now I’d be sitting outside the fourth floor dorms, where Penny lives. Agatha would have joined us.

But she’s been signed out, to spend the weekend with Micah. I stuff my hands in the pockets of my uniform trousers and pass some seventh years. 

They fall silent and I roll my eyes. Am I supposed to feel bad for walking this circuit alone? When they’re some pathetic teenage couple that won’t last past the first term of uni? (That’s not true, really. Lots of couples who met at Watford get married. I thought Agatha and I would be one of them...)

In an effort to ignore their stares, I look up at the ramparts. I see a female figure in a white dress, nearly transparent, and at first I think she’s a ghost.

Then she turns, and I realise that it’s just Agatha.

It’s against the rules to walk on the ramparts, but if Aggie doesn’t care, then I definitely don’t. I run up the stairs to confront her.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Are you waiting for Baz?”

“Simon,” she sighs. “Why did you follow me up here?”

“Because - well - this is a snogging spot!”

“This whole _school_ is a snogging spot,” she says, gesturing at the seventh years below. One’s got the other pressed up against the outside of the art wing. I look away.

“I just want to know if you’re going to be with Baz. Like, it’s okay. It’s your business. I just want to know since he’s my roommate. I feel like it’s only fair.”

“Simon, I’m not going to be with Baz,” she says. I don’t believe her, and she can tell, because she huffs.

“Seriously, Simon? I’m asexual, and aromantic.”

“A what?” I reply.

“Asexual? As in, not interested in romantic or sexual experiences?”

“Asexual like an amoeba?”

“No—anyway,” she sighs. “That’s why I broke up with you. And why I’m not dating Baz. Not that _he’d_ be interested, either.”

“Why? Is he an amoeba too?”

“That’s really problematic, Simon,” Agatha says, but she’s smiling now. I knock my shoulder against hers to apologise. She looks happier - lighter - than I’ve seen her in years.

“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know that much about being asexual. But I’ll look it up. Thanks for telling me.”

“You’re welcome.”

We stand in silence, then, gazing at the school, side by side as we lean our elbows on the wall of the ramparts.

“I’m gonna try to get into the cupola,” I finally say.

“Why?”

I shrug. “Baz wants to, and I want to get there first.”

“Ah.”

“Penny thinks it’s dumb, though. She says there’s no way to get in, plus it’s all of two feet high in there, so there’s nothing to see.”

“That doesn’t sound like her.”

“I know! It’s all because of _Micah_.”

“Oh, come off it, Simon. Let her be happy.”

I open my mouth to protest, but Agatha’s heard me whine about this too often, and she dismisses me with a wave of her hand.

“I, for one, am glad to see Penelope behaving like a normal teenager - you ought to try it sometime. And it’s more than two feet high.”

I straighten up. “The cupola?”

“Yes, look. You can see from here - there’s the cupola, and there’s the window of our Physics classroom. That classroom’s got low ceilings, but the cupola’s way higher than its window. There’s definitely an attic or something up there.”

I stare at the window, then the cupola, and then at Agatha. She’s tapping on her phone, as if she didn’t make a _life changing_ observation.

“You’re a genius.”

She doesn’t look up. “I know.”


	2. The Manor

**SIMON**

Saturday morning is cool and sunny. Penny’s still with Micah, and Agatha’s nowhere to be found, so I’m by myself. I sit on the grass outside Mummers, hoping that studying outdoors will motivate me to read for English. Instead, my eyes drift to the cupola - It’s the highest point of the school; you can see it from anywhere on campus. It’s small, and closer to the west side of the roof, since the front of the building faces that way. It sits above the seventh floor, which is all administrative rooms; the Headmaster’s office used to be there.

The sealed-off staircase _also_ borders the science classrooms, but on the far side from the cupola, to the east. I wonder if the cupola is accessible from that staircase, but there’s a dead end to the stairs above the fifth floor, as far as I can remember. I think I would have noticed if there were a room up there - I’ve explored it carefully over the years. 

I check the stairs during the week, when the biology lab is accessible again. I use my cellphone as a flashlight and examine the floor and walls of the fifth floor landing. There’s nothing there - just stones and plaster.

I don’t have time to investigate in the next few weeks. The days fly by: I submit my applications for uni, attend fencing practice, and try to stay afloat in my classes. I keep an eye on Baz, trying to figure out if he’s made any progress, but he seems as overwhelmed as everyone else.

A week before finals, I walk past his table in the library. He’s alone, and surrounded by books, but that’s not strange. What _is_ strange is that he’s asleep on top of one of those books. In seven and a half years of academic and athletic overachievement, I’ve never seen Baz Pitch so much as yawn outside the confines of our room. He never shows weakness.

It’s strange. And so I stop, and hold my breath as I come closer. I feel like Bilbo, trying not to disturb Smaug.

These books aren’t for school. At least, I don’t think so. He’s reading big leather-bound notebooks marked with months and years. There’s various issues of the school newspaper scattered around him, and even some old memory books.

This must be about the cupola. I start rifling through the papers. They’re from the eighties and nineties, mostly, which matches the time period that Baz’s mum was headmistress, and when the construction was happening around the cupola.

I chide myself for not considering the school records in my search. Though if I’m being honest, there hasn’t been much of a search lately.

“Fuck off, Snow,” a deep, sleepy voice rumbles.

Baz sits up, running his hands through his slightly ruffled hair to smooth it down again. It looked better messy, honestly.

“Have you been researching the cupola?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. Then: “Have you found anything?”

“No,” he says, and he’s still a bit sleepy so he doesn’t sound like he’s lying. “I’m going to look while I’m home for Christmas.”

I nod. I’m staying here for Christmas, since Agatha and I aren’t together anymore, and Penny’s family barely fit in their house as it is.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s that Baz fell asleep on his expensive watch, and now there’s a big pink circle imprinted on his forehead. Or maybe I’m too exhausted by school and real life to keep up this particular rivalry. Whatever it is, the words slip out before I can think about them.

“We should work together.”

He raises one eyebrow at me. The silence stretches on, awkwardly, and I find myself struggling to explain myself.

“You have the data,” I add. “Photos, files from your mum. And your whole family’s gone to Watford. But what I have is _experience_. I know the school backwards and forwards. Neither of us is likely to figure out how to get into the cupola alone.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m saying, we should call a truce.”

“And why would either of us agree to that?”

I chew on my lip. “Well, personally, I don’t want you to beat me. But I also want to know what’s up there, and I think two heads are better than one.”

He rubs his eyes, and pulls his hair into a ponytail using the hair tie on his wrist. I don’t breathe.

“Okay,” he says, a little disbelieving. “Fine. We’ll shake on it.”

And we do.

We continue our research together in the library, since both of us have to study for our finals anyway. If Penny and Agatha think that Baz’s sudden appearance at our table is strange, they don’t say it. Penny actually seems _more_ stressed since applying to uni. She’s always checking her phone and twirling her hair around her finger. She’s not in any position to notice her surroundings.

Then we take our exams. Penny leaves first: Micah picks her up to spend a few days with him before he flies home to America.

It’s just Baz and I on the last day of term. Agatha’s still here, but she wasn’t keen to hang out in the library once she’d taken her last exam.

“Well, I have to head home soon,” Baz says finally, packing my laptop back into his bookbag.

“Have a good Christmas,” I say, more out of habit than friendship.

“You too,” he answers. “Going to stay with Wellbelove?”

“Uh, no? We broke up, remember.”

“Bunce then?”

“Too many siblings.” I look out the window - the sky is grey, and it’s getting dark already. “I’m just going to stay here.”

Baz turns on his heel, and grabs my shoulder. “What? Of course not.”

I must look puzzled, because he adds, “It’s not fair. You said it yourself - you know the school inside and out. How do I know you’re not going to take this opportunity to steal my data and find the cupola yourself?”

“You say data like we’ve found _anything_ in these dusty books,” I scoff. He rolls his eyes, but then his expressions gets - serious. Contemplative, even.

“Come to Hampshire,” he says. “For Christmas. My family has a library. They’ve got their old Watford memory books, and my mother’s diaries. We can research more. It’s only fair. You don’t get to creep around for two weeks, and the only advantage I’ll have over you is that I can actually read.”

I study his face, his stormy eyes. He looks nervous. I tilt my head. “That’s fucking weird, Pitch.”

He zips his bag and hefts it over one shoulder. “Fine, stay here and beg for your Christmas dinner like the little Oliver Twist you are.”

“Fuck no,” I respond. “I’m coming to Hampshire. I’m gonna sleep in your posh bed and eat all your posh food.”

“You will not! My aunt’s coming tomorrow at ten. Be packed and ready to go.” 

He leaves the library without waiting for me. All I can think of, as I put away my books, and even later, when I’m packing my suitcase and my toothbrush and Baz is telling me which trousers to wear to Christmas dinner, is that I have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into.

*

I’m terrified of Baz’s aunt Fiona. She came to Watford for Baz’s violin recital fourth year, and coincidentally, Baz poured superglue inside my shoes so I was stuck in them right after she left. I know he got the idea, and probably the glue, from her - she was a terror while she was at Watford if the stories are to be believed.

I keep a stiff upper lip when I see her car pull into the drive. Baz knocks my shoulder as he picks up his luggage, and doesn’t even apologise. (Typical.) 

“You look like a K-pop star who stole my great-grandmother’s curtains,” she says, as soon as she steps out of the car and studies Baz’s floral brocade jacket. I snort, but I also feel kind of bad for doing so, because it does look good on him.

I brace myself for an insult, too, but I guess she doesn’t know me well enough yet. (I hope she never will. She’s terrifying.) Instead she winks and says, “Baz has never brought someone home for Christmas with him before. You must be very close friends.”

I glance over at Baz, who is blushing and gritting his teeth. I don’t know why Fiona’s being so sarcastic. Surely she’s aware that, even four years post superglue, we hate each other.

The drive to Hampshire takes an hour and a half. Baz and Fiona fight over the radio - she wants to play something that sounds like the singer’s screaming while banging pans together. Baz wants to listen to Christmas music. That surprises me.

I lean my head against the window and close my eyes. I listen to them bicker, and it makes me smile. Fiona or Baz will ask me to chime in - usually as the tiebreaker in a dispute, or a witness when they’re talking about something Baz did at Watford.

As the ride goes on, Fiona talks to me more. She asks me to tell a funny story about Baz. I tell her about fifth year, when the two of us lit the bonfire together. The wind blew sparks at his face, and he screamed because he thought he’d singed off his eyebrow. Baz turns red, but he laughs along with my rendition of the story. I’m embarrassing him, but it doesn’t feel antagonistic for once. 

My favourite part of Christmas with the Wellbeloves was the ambient warmth I could sense in their home. Even when I wasn’t technically a part of family festivities, I absorbed some of that joy just by being near it. Somehow, this feels even warmer. It’s strange - as if when we left the walls of Watford, something changed between us.

It doesn’t get any less weird once we arrive at Pitch Manor. At school, Baz holds himself with impenetrable confidence. But he lingers in the doorway here, I can tell he feels awkward. As soon as we’ve finished greeting his family, he hisses at me to follow him up the stairs.

He breathes easier once we get to his room. We chat about everything and nothing as we unpack. He tells me that his Classics teacher, Dr. Minos, showed a clip of HBO’s Rome without realising there would be a sex scene in it. I tell him about the time Miss Possibelf shared her laptop screen in English class and everyone saw a dirty text from her boyfriend. (“I didn’t even know old people had boyfriends until then,” I say, and he tells me in length about Fiona’s many dalliances.)

Usually Baz and I are at odds, but here we’re kind of on the same team. Not only because we’re working together, but because here, we’re the only people who share these experiences, understand our inside jokes. He’s the most familiar thing in this house.

I don’t belong here, but in a weird way, neither does he.

We’ve long since finished unpacking when one of Baz’s sisters comes to fetch the two of us for dinner. My jaw drops at the spread. It’s incredible. I’ve never eaten such crispy potatoes, or such rich shepherd’s pie. The food at Watford is amazing, but this is somehow better.

Baz’s dad is quiet, but he shakes my hand. Baz’s stepmother pours us wine. Baz drinks his in a few gulps. I don’t like the taste, but I choke it down to be polite. I might have awful table manners, but I never turn down food or drink.

The wine warms my belly and makes me sleepy. I doze off in my chair for half a second, until Baz kicks me in the food. He gestures his head towards his lap, where I can see he’s texting on his iPhone under his napkin.

I surreptitiously pull out my phone, too. He’s texted me, _Library after dinner. Be DISCREET._

I don’t know why Baz’s parents would have a problem with the two of us going into their library, unless Baz has told them I’m an oaf who will spill something on their priceless first editions.

“Why are you being so secretive?” I whisper, following behind him through a dark hallway. “Wait. Are you taking me to your dungeon to murder me?”

“Of course not. The dungeon’s in the west wing.” 

Finally we arrive in front of thick wooden double doors. Baz tiptoes away from me and puts his hand on the doorknob. He looks around, holding his breath. Satisfied, he turns the knob and nods at me to follow him. 

I don’t see the thick rug set in front of the door until it’s too late. Until my foot’s already slipped under it, and I’ve crashed loudly and painfully onto the ground. 

“Fuck!” I yell. 

“Shut up!” Baz hisses. I look up at him, ready to give him a piece of my mind, when the light clicks on.

It’s one of the twins. She’s wearing footie pajamas with little candy canes, and an evil smile.

“I found them!” she yells, and suddenly we’re set upon by the other twin, as well.

“We can’t play,” Baz pleads. “We have to study in the library.”

“No you don’t,” Mordelia chimes in, walking up behind them and smirking. “I got to Watford too now, so you can’t pull that on me. They’re your problem now. I’m putting the baby to sleep.”

“Can you read the bug book, Baz?” Thing 1 says. He sighs and glances at me. “This is why we needed to be quiet,” he mutters. I shrug and swing Thing 2 onto my shoulders, carrying her all the way back to the living room.

The bug book turns out to be a huge pop-up picture book with faxts about all sorts of insects. The girls love it; they scream and laugh as every new bug pops up as if they haven’t seen it a thousand times before. Mordelia joins us too, once the baby’s in bed. She settles onto the couch, in the small space between me and the armrest. I’m surprised at the proximity.

She tucks her stockinged feet under herself and tips her head at me curiously. “I heard that you burned off Baz’s eyebrow.”

“He said I did, but I didn’t. It was a stray spark from the bonfire,” I protest.

“Lame,” she says with a sigh. “Miss Possibelf told me that I’m one more prank away from getting suspended.”

“What?” I lean in closer. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. She doesn’t believe me when I say that Lexie started it.”

“Lexie Pixey? Like Trixie’s sister?” I ask.

“Yes! She’s so annoying. She poured glitter on my bed. So I snuck into the biology lab, stole a dead rat, and put it under her pillow.”

I look over at the twins and Baz - they’re still engrossed in storytime. Good, because I don’t want to be a bad role model.

I stare at this wicked eleven-year-old intensely and drop my voice to a low whisper.

“Mordelia. Tell me _everything_.”

*

I don’t actually sleep in Baz’s posh bed. (Obviously. Because he sleeps in it, and I’d have to sleep there with him, which would be weird.) But his posh couch is nearly as comfortable. And the sound of his breaths helped me get to sleep faster.

We both wake up early, dress in cosy clothes, and head downstairs to help Daphne and Vera with breakfast. As I peel oranges for the baby, I find myself thinking that I’ll never get to have this type of Christmas. I have my chosen family - Penny, Ebb, even Agatha - but it’s not the same. This is the storybook family Christmas I fantasized about as a kid.

I used to be so jealous of Baz when we all returned for spring term. Baz would always come back from the holidays wearing a new wool jumper, and he’d pin up a Christmas card that Mordelia made for him. I’d even see him actually smile at his phone.

I don’t really feel jealous right now. I have the fleeting thought that I’d like to come here next year, too, before I realise how ridiculous that is. We’re not friends, we’re only working together because of the truce. And once we both graduate and go to university, I won’t see Baz again.

Next year will be different. Next year Penny and I will be in uni, living in our own flat. Her family is huge and chaotic so she’s planning on skipping Christmas at theirs so we can spend the day together, doing our own thing.

And that’s enough - more than enough - for me.

*

“Could you pass the sugar?” Daphne asks. I scramble towards the cupboard and reach up for the container.

As I hand it to her, she smiles. “I love when Baz comes home because he can reach the high shelves. And now he’s brought you, so I’m doubly ecstatic.”

“Baz makes fun of me for being short,” I reply, and Daphne elbows Baz, who is on her other side measuring flour. “Baz! If Simon’s short, what does that make me?”

“An adorable miniature,” Baz replies dryly. Daphne pats his cheek.

“So I heard Simon is here to work on some sort of project? I thought the term was over.”

“It’s more of a recreational project,” Baz says. “Snow and I have decided to research the Watford cupola.”

She laughs, surprised. “You know, when I was there, it was just another architectural quirk. There wasn’t so much lore and secrecy around it.”

I perk up. “So when did that start, d’you know? Penny says her parents knew about it.”

“When were they at Watford, again?”

“They got married as soon as they graduated, and had Premal right away. He’s nineteen now, so I think they probably graduated in 1994 or 1995. When did you graduate?”

“1988 batch. Don’t tell anyone I said that. I don’t want anyone to know how old I am!”

“That’s not old at all, Mrs. Grimm. You look lovely.” She grins fully and bumps her elbow into Baz again. He hasn’t said anything, so I’m not sure why. 

**BAZ**

Daphne’s knowing looks are driving me mad. Of course Snow is doubly charming around middle-aged women. The most awful part is that he doesn’t have to try. He’s just that _good_.

I interrupt them because I can’t handle any more of this. The more Simon ingratiates himself into my family, the easier it gets for me to plan a summer wedding in Pitch Manor’s rose garden. 

“1988 to 1995 is only seven years; you’d have overlapped with the Bunces at Watford,” I point out to my stepmother.

“Yes, certainly.” Her cell phone rings and she grabs a clean tea towel to wipe her flour-coated hands on. “Oh! That’s my sister. Leave the cake batter for now - do you boys mind supervising biscuit decorating while I talk to her?”

“Not at all,” I reply. Simon moves the newly-cooled biscuits to the kitchen table while I corral my siblings.

We set the baby in his high chair and give him a dollop of icing and several biscuits to mangle. Mordelia starts decorating a dove of peace as dead crow covered in blood in and I’m too amused to intervene. Simon and the twins are decorating the Christmas-tree shaped biscuits, and Snow’s piping isn’t much better than theirs.

I’ve selected a plain square shortbread - rhe smell of butter makes me sentimental. I cut a tiny hole in the icing bag and start piping intricate lines.

I’m deeply engrossed for a while. My concentration breaks when I feel Simon shift closer. His breath falls on the back of my neck in warm puffs, and I have to grit my teeth so my hands don’t shake.

“Quit it, Snow,” I snap. “You’re going to distract me.”

He ignores my request and leans over my shoulder to see better. “Is that Mummers?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“So that’s the oak by the front door. And that, up there, is the window of our room.

“Observant.”

“You drew it open,” he says, and I blush.

“Are you gonna miss it? When we graduate.”

“Why would I miss it? I’ve lived with a deranged chimpanzee for the last eight years. That is far too long, thank you.”

He scowls, and I immediately feel guilty. When I panic, I default to insults, and I’m always in a panic around Snow. 

“Are you going to miss it?” I ask him in return, because I might be terrified but I don’t want the conversation to end.

“I guess,” he says. “I mean. I haven’t got anywhere else that I come back to every year. I guess it’ll feel all backwards once I go to uni. Like there’s nothing tying me down to the world. No home anymore.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, along with the urge to take Simon into my arms.

“Watford will still be there. You can visit whenever you want. And more importantly, the things, places and people you love will always be within you.”

He looks at me then - really looks, with eyes that drown me and a smile that brings me back to life.

I turn away because if he keeps looking at me like that, I’m either going to punch him or kiss him.

“That’s what my mother said,” I continue. “Nothing that we love can disappear forever. Just light a match in your heart and blow on the tinder.”


	3. The Attic

SIMON 

The next day, we hide out in the library early so that Baz’s siblings can’t find us. We start going through their books together. Baz points out Fiona, his dad, and his mum in all the pictures - even a few of Daphne.

Finally, we open Natasha Grimm-Pitch’s diaries. They’re fancy, bound in leather, with the year stamped in gold on the spine. Inside the paper is still well-preserved, and there’s writing in small cursive on various dates.

Everything seems to be chronological. 

“When did your mum become headmistress?” I ask.

“1996.”

“Wow, she must have just had you.”

“She was the first headmistress to be pregnant, and the youngest headmistress in Watford history. She was only thirty-three, and she’d been teaching there since uni, but that was still less than a decade.”

“She must have been really talented,” I say.

“What my father said was that something happened, and there was a lot of upheaval in the school. A lot of the older teachers resigned, or left for other schools. There were a bunch who were still there - like Dr. Minos and Miss Possibelf - but in the end, my mum became headmistress.”

I nod. I don’t know much about the politics of running an old and selective public school like Watford. “Oh! Look. I found 1997.”

“That’s likely far later than we need for this,” Baz says.

“Oh - here. It’s a Watford record book with the years, for anniversaries and such. It says your mum became headmistress in 1996, but that she was part of an interim group for three years before that. The last headmistress had left in 1993.”

Baz frowns. “The headmistress before my mother? I thought there was an older man. I’ve never heard anything about a headmistress.”

I read the paragraph again. The script is small, but Headmistress Pitch has flawless writing. It’s notsp hard for me to read that I’d misinterpret it. 

“Look,” I say, pushing the page over to Baz. “They refer to her as Headmistress Blue here.”

He nods. “I’ve never heard of her,” he says. “That’s so strange.”

We sit in silence for a while, flipping through the books. Baz finally taps my shoulder. When I look up, he’s scooted close to me. He holds the diary in front of both of us. “I found mentions of her in this volume. Blue - She was headmistress for about ten years. She started in 1983.”

“Did she retire in ‘93?”

“There’s no log of it, but I would suppose so.”

I rummage around the messy pile we’ve made in the library until I find Natasha Pitch’s 1993 diary. I skimmed it earlier, but now I read through it looking specifically for the name Blue.

“Here!” I finally point at a page in Natasha’s diary.

“April 12, 1993. A special meeting has been convened to deal with allegations made by Mage about Blue. I have never been fond of Mage, but we must hear him out.”

Baz wrinkles his brow. It’s sort of cute, I think. I keep reading out loud - half because I want to know what happens, and half because I want to keep his attention. 

“An awful meeting. Mage’s accusations became increasingly sordid and outlandish. Blue has undoubtedly made poor choices, but there is no evidence that she is guilty of certain acts.”

Baz holds his hands out, and I don’t balk at passing the diary to him. He scans the pages, flips through a few more, and finally settles on something.

“I spoke to Cordelia. She’s leaving immediately. Though I’m sad to see her go, I must say that she has made choices that are incompatible with her post in an institution such as this. We can only hope that this dark blemish on our school’s history soon fades from remembrance.”

I nod, and he continues.

“Those of us aware of what transpired in that attic have decided that as part of the routine renovation of the south wing and girls’ dormitories, it will be sealed off and never spoken of again.”

I grin. “That has to be it! An attic. The photo of your mum is from, when, 1994? You can see the scaffolding on the outside of the building next to the cupola. And then the photo from the next day, she’s standing in front of the place where they’ve set a new wall, and you can see that it goes deeper down than you’d think of it. That’s when the cupola was sealed away from the student body.”

“This is barely any evidence to go by,” Baz says, but he’s smiling. He reaches into his pocket and jingles his keys. “Should we over tonight?”

“Definitely,” I answer. My stomach rumbles in protest, and I amend my decision. “After dinner, though.”

He laughs. “Far be it for me to keep _Simon Snow_ from his gluttony. Even solving a decades-old mystery doesn’t hold a candle to roast beef.”

“Excuse me! The mystery will still be here in two hours. The food, not so much.”

Baz kicks my foot with a socked toe and I groan in mock agony. He snorts and shoves me harder, and I knee him in the chest, and he pins me to the floor by my wrists.

It’s nice, fighting with him when it’s not actual fighting. I don’t have to worry that he’ll take something the wrong way. Or that I’ll hurt him seriously. We’ve been roommates for eight years, and I never expected that to translate to this uncommon sort of trust.

“You’re stronger than you look,” I grumble, as I try to wriggle out from under his wrists. I’m shorter and stockier than him, but he’s all wiry muscle. He might weigh more than me, just because of how tall he is. Despite all of my scones, even. That pisses me off. 

I hook my leg around his hip, and he falters - just for a moment, enough that I can slip my wrist away and reach for his armpit. And then he shrieks - because he’s ticklish.

“Shh, your sisters will hear,” I say, and he falls silent, though he’s still twisting in agony, and his eyes promise murder.

I can only float for a few seconds before he snatches my hands again, pressing them against the floor. This time, he’s not holding my wrist; instead, he’s interlaced our fingers.

“You’re insufferable,” he growls. “If you resort to cheating, I’m clearly stronger than you. Admit it.”

I lift my head up until our noses are brushing. “Never.”

“How exactly do you expect to win then?” Baz sneers.

I consider my position. The way Baz is holding my hands isn’t much of a restraint. I could easily slip out, flip us over and pin him down. But I don’t want to stop holding his hands.

So I do the next thing that occurs to me - I kiss him.

I just lift my head up, angle my chin so that our lips touch, and then watch for his reaction. His eyes slip closed, and his body relaxes into mine. 

I smile against his lips, and then I do flip us, so I’m hovering over him instead.

“Jesus Christ,” Baz says, blinking dazedly.

“I won, didn’t I?” I say. My brain catches up to me enough to think that maybe _kissing_ my roommate, whose house I’m staying at, isn’t the best way to win a grapple. But Baz doesn’t look disgusted or anything; he’s just surprised. And a little scared. There’s a flush on his cheeks that would look girlish on anyone else, but on him it’s - I don’t know - vulnerable.

So I dip my head down and kiss him again, properly this time, and he kisses me back. His lips are soft and his hair is silky where I run my fingers through it. He lifts his hands into my hair and strokes my curls.

Oh. This is what it’s supposed to feel like.

Kissing Agatha was like sitting in the sun. Pleasant, warm, comfortable. 

There’s nothing warm or sunny about Baz. He’s a bolt of lightning, the kind that could set a whole forest on fire.

Right now, he could set me on fire and I’d keep kissing him. It’s intoxicating, especially because he keeps letting me. He’s eager. 

Sometimes our mouths break apart and he looks like he’s about to say that this is a bad idea, or that we should stop, or something else I don’t want to think about right now. (Because this is probably the only _good_ idea we’ve ever had about one another.) I don’t let him say anything; I just swallow his words, and he holds me tighter.

BAZ 

Simon Snow kissed me. 

Simon Snow is kissing me. Every time we pull away for breath, I think that this must be the moment he panics, or punches me in the face, or tells me it’s just a joke. Instead, he kisses me again.

In some vague corner of my brain, I know that it’s Christmas Eve. I know that we’re expected at dinner, that we have to be dressed crisply in suits, and that I’d rather my parents didn’t know we were in here snogging, at least not right away. At least until I’ve figured out what, if anything, is happening here.

Then, Simon kisses the corner of my mouth, and my cheek, and then works his way down my neck. I gasp as he nibbles on the skin of my throat. He’s so good at this; I ought to send Wellbelove a fruit basket.

He slips a rough, warm hand under my shirt and just holds me, his hand wrapped around my waist. I’m just daring enough to walk my fingers up the back of his shirt, too, and stroke the warm skin of his back.

He presses further into me in response to my touch, so he’s laying on me. We’re touching from shoulder to knee. He’s heavy, but his weight feels good against me: comforting, solid, _real_.

This is real.

_Simon Snow is kissing me._

So I kiss the mole on his cheek that I’ve wanted to kiss since it was 12. And then I kiss one on his jaw, that didn’t appear until last year, and then one on the side of his neck. He gasps and says, “No one’s ever kissed me anywhere but my mouth before.”

I don’t tell him that no one’s kissed me on my mouth before.

I just kiss him again, and again, and his hand is squeezing my side and then my thigh. His other hand gets lost in my hair, tangling it beyond repair, probably, but I can’t bring myself to care.

I suck the spot on his neck until there’s a purpling bruise around that mole, and then, once I’m satisfied, I lean back up towards his mouth.

SIMON

Baz’s mouth and hands are everywhere all at once, and I’m losing my mind.

It doesn’t make sense that kissing _him_ can feel so much better than kissing anyone else ever has. But it _does_. The coolness of his lips, the way his hands are warm now from resting against the skin of my back. The way that he kisses like he’s hungry for it, or like he’s running out of air and the only way he can breathe is through my lips.

I wonder if he would let me lift up his shirt more and kiss his stomach. I’ve always noticed it during football matches. He lifts his shirt up to his face to wipe sweat from his brow. 

Since we never change in front of one another, football is the only time I’m able to see his abs. I felt really fucking jealous of them, and I kept telling myself that it might have been a trick of the light. And if I just went to another match, I’d realise he wasn’t actually that fit.

In hindsight, that’s well gay.

Am I gay? Is Baz gay? It doesn’t seem to matter right now. I push his shirt up over his navel. I run my hands over the muscles and the wiry hair of his stomach, and he hums like he’s purring. I think he likes it, so I do it again.

I consider sliding down his body and dipping my head to kisse his stomach, but that feels a little much. 

But he’s kissing me so enthusiastically, humming with contentment as I explore his skin. I decide - fuck it, Baz might never speak to me again after tonight. I’ll do it because this might be my only chance.

I lean down, and he gasps and laughs when I blow air over his belly button. And then I reach down to kiss the bit of softness right below it, and he gasps in a way that’s much less lighthearted.

Bang.

“Baz!” Bang. “Baz Baz Baz why is the door -”

Baz shoves me off, and immediately runs both hands through his hair. He glares at me, motioning at my shirt, and I startle. I try to fix my hair, unwrinkle my shirt, and generally look less like I’ve been snogging the life out of my roommate for the last twenty minutes.

Baz clears his throat and opens one of the library’s doors just a crack. I can see a little girl’s socked feet; they’re in tiny black penny loafers. (I really need to figure out which twin is which.)

“Mum says it’s time for dinner in ten minutes. Why aren’t you dressed up?”

“We’ve been busy with school,” Baz snaps. “Now get out.”

“Is Simon there too? Hi, Simon!” I wave awkwardly as Baz lets the door swing open a bit more.

Thing 2 (I think) frowns. “Have you two been fighting? Why’s Simon got that bruise there?”

My hand flies to my neck, and Baz looks horrified.

“I tripped,” I say quickly. “And fell into the shelf over there.”

She laughs.

“Anyway, off you go,” Baz says, practically shoving The girl out the door. I hear the sound of her leather shoes pattering across the hallway, and then she shouts, “They’re coming, Mum! Simon hurt himself. He fell onto a shelf--”

“Fuck,” Baz says, and he finally meets my eyes. My hand is still on the hickey that he gave me, and he bats it away. “Stop touching it, you’ll just make it worse.”

“I don’t think _not touching_ it will help, either, ” I say, and he rolls his eyes.

“Come on. I’ll get you a jumper that will cover it up, at least.”

We manage to sneak into Baz’s room without encountering more family members. Once we’re there, we stand together in front of the bathroom mirror. I splash water on my face and hair, trying to disguise my kiss-swollen lips and shaggy curls.

Baz sprays some product into his hair to settle it. It’s tough for him, though, because every time he gets it right, I can’t resist messing it up again with hands and kisses.

Finally, he locks me in the closet so we can both get dressed.

He’s letting me borrow a turtleneck jumper, in the hopes of covering up the hickey, and I’m wearing a pair of khakis that are probably the only non-uniform trousers I own.

When I’m done, I can still hear him in the en-suite, so I fidget and consider if it’s less suspicious to just go downstairs without him. I don’t want Baz’s dad to threaten to break my limbs if I break Baz’s heart - at least not on Christmas Eve.

I tell him I’m heading downstairs, and he says “Alright,” in a harried way. I assume that I’m distracting him from something important that he’s doing to his shirt, or his hair, or whatever. (I hope he’s not slicking his hair back. I like it loose, when it falls to his chin in subtle waves.)

“Hello, Simon,” Daphne says when I walk into the dining room. I take a seat at the spot with my place card on it - it’s in Daphne’s handwriting, but coloured over in various shades of crayon, presumably by the twins. “Are you doing alright? I heard there was an injury.”

“He’s fine,” Baz interrupts. I turn around, and it takes all my willpower to keep a neutral expression.

He’s dressed in a suit - dark green, way more elegant than the kelly green of our uniforms, with a thin black button-up underneath. His hair is falling around his face in soft waves, and his cheeks are flushed more than usual.

He sits down next to me, and my heart stutters when our shoulders brush.

I knock my foot against his, under the table where no one can see.

“You look good,” I murmur, and enjoy the way his mouth twitches into a slight smile.

He waits until one of the twins starts loudly telling a meandering story about her primary school teacher, and then adds, under his breath, “You’re not too bad yourself, Snow.”

As promised, I stuff myself on roast beef, and turkey, and ham too. I feel like everyone must know what just happened, considering that neither of us can stop smiling, but I just shovel more food into my mouth whenever I need to hide it.

After dinner, we retire to the living room, where the kids ask numerous questions about Father Christmas and whine when they’re told to go to bed.

We get up, too, and follow them upstairs after saying our goodbyes. Then, we go to Baz’s room. He takes thick blankets out of the chest at the foot of his bed, and sets them by the fire.

“I’m so full,” I complain.

“You deserve it - no one forced you to eat your weight in pie.”

“Needed to keep my mouth occupied so I didn’t say anything stupid,” I answer.

He grins. “Everything you say is -”

“Shut up.” And then, I make him.

We stay like that - bundled up by the fire, talking and kissing - until Daphne and Malcolm’s voices fall silent. They’ve either gone to Malcolm’s study or back to their room, which means the coast is clear to sneak away to Watford.

“I’m sleepy,” I grumble. “Can’t we do this tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, we will be set upon by hordes of shrieking children by six AM sharp, and not left alone until six PM at the earliest,” Baz says. “We ought to go now.” But he punctuates his statement with a loud yawn.

“Tomorrow. We’ve got time, right?” I turn my head towards his, my breath catching in my chest as I look at the shadows of his face in the firelight. He’s so beautiful.

“We’ve got time,” he agrees, and leans towards my mouth.

Even though we’re tired, we don’t sleep very much at all that night. We kiss on the couch until our mouths are sore, and Baz falls asleep in my arms.

*

The sound of the children laughing wakes me up when it’s still dark out. Baz has turned away from me in the night, but I’ve still got my arms wrapped around his waist. The couch really isn’t big enough for the two of us, and I kept waking up at night. So did Baz. 

But neither one of us wanted to move. We just traded sleepy kisses until we nodded off again.

But now that everyone else is up, I don't want to risk someone bursting in. I slip off the couch, tuck the blanket over Baz’s shoulders, and tiptoe to the loo.

Christmas morning is a bit awkward, since I didn’t bring gifts for anyone, and they didn’t plan for me to come, either. Daphne gives me a warm woollen scarf and some matching leather gloves that feel like they’re made of butter.

The children don’t mind that I didn’t bring gifts for them. They tear open wrapping paper greedily, screeching; and then they start playing with ribbons, bows, and their new toys. It’s chaos, and it’s lovely. 

At some point, Baz and I manage to sneak away from the ruckus. He makes me tea, and I sip it gratefully. “We can sit in the library,” he says, and I follow him there.

I thought we might speak while we’re here, but instead Baz finds a memory book and starts taking notes about it in his Moleskine.

“I thought we had a lead,” I say. “What are you reading?”

“We barely have a lead,” he snaps. “We need to be more prepared. We can’t just sit around like we yesterday evening -”

“Hey.” I set down my cup, harder than necessary. “I wouldn’t call it sitting around, and you weren’t complaining.”

Baz blushes. “I wasn’t talking about that. I mean -”

“You’re being dense,” I say. “Are you really going to pretend last night didn’t happen?”

“Of course last night happened. Nights happen three-hundred sixty-five days a year. I’m not in the habit of denying that-”

I shut him up with my mouth, because I’ve learned that it works. When I pull away, he’s smiling.

“You know what I mean about last night. You slept in my arms-”

“Fitfully.”

“So, like. What’s going on?”

He takes another sip of tea and looks away, trying to seem nonchalant. “I don’t know, Snow. You tell me.”

“I think we’re finally doing something right. I like kissing you more than fighting with you. I like to look at you, and I like spending time with you when you’re not acting like a prick.”

He blushes and reaches his hand out to me. And this, somehow - just lacing our fingers together, sitting twelve inches apart on the couch - feels more intimate than any of the kissing we got up to last night.

“I want to be your boyfriend, if you’ll have me,” I say. 

His eyes light like in the picture of him in the photo album.

“Are you serious?” He asks.

“Yeah. So you know what I want. Do you want that too?”

“You’re an imbecile.”

“What - oh.” (I take his kisses as a yes.)

Because we haven’t got a good reason to sneak away to school on Christmas Day, Baz tells his parents that we’re going to visit Penelope and Agatha, and we make for Watford.

Once we’re in the car park, Baz pulls out a small, wrapped box from his coat pocket and hands it to me.

“I didn’t get you anything,” I protest, embarrassed, but he shoves it towards me. I open it. 

It’s a little metal figurine of the Watford dragon, our mascot. I turn it over in my hands, and read the inscription on the bottom. 

_25th Reunion, class of 1979._

“Is this your mum’s?” I ask. He nods.

Warmth blooms in my chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you a gift.”

He clears his throat and looks out the window. “You gave me yourself. That’s the best gift I could ask for.”

I can’t prevent the delighted laugh in my chest from bubbling out. “Damn, Pitch, you’re sappy.”

He huffs and makes to pull his hand out of mine, but I don't let him. Instead, I tug him closer and kiss him.

“You’re the greatest gift I could have asked for, too. I’m sorry for taking the piss. And, thank you.”

“Well. You’re welcome,” he says, smiling.

“I want to get you something too. Let’s stop by the Christmas market on the way back.”

*

Watford looks deserted when we arrive. I reach into my pocket and feel the key to enter the Weeping Tower there. It’s unlocked during term, but probably locked right now. Penny gave me a contraband key a few years back - she said it was only fair, since she’s able to enter Mummers.

Neither Baz nor I dare to glance at our dormitory. That would make...this, whatever it is, too real. The kind of thing that goes beyond Christmas, the kind of thing that has consequences. I don’t want to think about going back to the place Baz and I spent eight years being enemies, this time as boyfriends. I’m not sure if it’s because I think we’ll end up fighting or shagging. Both of which are a terrifying prospect. (At least the fighting would be familiar.)

We enter the Weeping Tower without issue. We’ve decided to check my favourite stairwell first, just in case two pairs of eyes are better than one. The biology wing has its own set of locked doors, however, and we don’t have a good plan for that part.

“Can’t you pick the lock? Isn’t that something you learned in your chavvy childhood?” Baz says.

“Oh, sod off.” We can’t shout too much, or be too violent in taking down the biology doors, since there are a few students staying back and security still passes through the buildings.

We walk to the chemistry floor and the physics floor, hoping that someone has neglected to lock at least one of those doors; it wouldn’t be ideal to reach the window, but we could still make it work. We end up right in front of the biology double doors again, out of breath and a bit frustrated.

“We should have made an actual plan,” Baz says. “This is what I get for allying myself with Simon ‘let’s see when we get there’ Snow.”

I would make a witty - or, not witty, but some type of retort. Maybe kissing Baz, which I’ve found is the best way to shut him up. Only I’ve got distracted.

I’ve just remembered my conversation with Mordelia.

“The dining hall,” I say. “There’s an entrance to the biology lab from the dining hall.”

“The dining hall? Really? But why?”

“Because the lab animals and the food arrive in lorries! So they unload the specimens outside of the dining hall, where the service car park is. Then they put them on a lift, and roll them though the building to the biology rooms.”

“There’s a door there,” Baz says, breathless. “Oh my god, you’re right. It’s the small, creepy door - I thought it was a broom closet. How did you _know_ this?”

“I didn’t. Your sister did,” I say, taking off in the direction of the dining hall.

“Wait, what?” he calls out from behind me, and I shush him even though our voices are being lost to the winter wind.

“The only thing is,” I say, staring at the door of the dining hall with my hands on my hips, “I don’t have a way of getting in here either.”

I turn to Baz, expecting him to look annoyed, but he just looks smug. He pulls his keyring from his pocket and shoves me out of the way, getting more hands than strictly necessary.

He dangles a bronze key between his thumb and forefinger, then flips it into his hand with one mesmerizing motion. Within moments, the door to the dining hall is unlocked.

“You have a key to the kitchens?” I gape.

He smirks. “Cook Pritchard is my cousin.”

“I can’t believe you never told me this.”

“Well, we weren’t exactly on friendly terms, were we?” My face falls, and bumps my shoulder with his own genially.

“If I’d known this was the key to your heart, I’d have used it long ago,” he teases.

I lean in to kiss him. “You’re such a tosser. Now, budge up — might be leftover cherry scones in here.”

There are, sadly, no surplus scones, but we take the proferred route and arrive quickly to the biology lab. I send silent thanks to Baz’s creepy sister, and then I climb out the window.

“This is insane,” Baz says as he swings his long legs over the windowsill. “You do this regularly? Aren’t you worried about falling to your death?”

“It’s not bad as long as it’s not raining,” I reply. The ledge out here is plenty wide, and there’s lots of bits sticking out of the brick to hold on to. It’s more about not looking down than anything.

I scramble across to the other window first, and then Baz follows, looking deeply hesitant. He breathes a sigh of relief once we’re in through the window and into the dark stairwell.

“This is horrifying, Snow. It’s pitch black in here.”

“I kind of like it,” I say. I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight. Somehow, it just makes the stairwell _creepier_. Before, you could imagine it was a comforting kind of darkness, like your room at night. Now the dust and cobwebs are illuminated, but not much else.

“Should be up two flights, around the level of the physics lab,” I say. As I start climbing the steps, holding my phone in one hand like a torch, I feel Baz’s hand brush against mine. I grab it, and even though it’s dark, I still hold back my grin.

“There it is,” I breathe. We have to duck to enter, but the ceilings aren’t low once we do. It’s just a dusty, narrow nook. Just as the last time I checked, there’s nothing to see here.

Baz switches on his own flashlight and walks around, examining the floor and all the corners carefully. Finally, he turns his light upwards, and illuminates a piece of string hanging from the ceiling.

“What’s that?” he muses. I shrug; I’d jumped up to yank it last time, and concluded that it must control a long-dead lightbulb.

“Let me up on your shoulders,” he says, and I raise both eyebrows.

“You won’t drop me,” he says. “You’ve got a solid frame.”

“Hm,” I answer. It’s still weird when Baz compliments me. Or even makes neutral statements about me. I never thought that he noticed me the way I noticed him. Never imagined that he catalogued the details of my body as I did with his.

I bend down, and he climbs onto my shoulders and reaches up. His head is nearly touching the ceiling now. He instructs me to shine the light directly towards the string.

BAZ

I have to hold back a cough, it’s so dusty. I consider the possibility that we’re exposing ourselves to significant amounts of asbestos. Maybe that’s what rotted Snow’s brain - coming here for all these years.

I pull a handkerchief from my pocket and start wiping away some of the dust. In the dim light, I can see the faint suggestion of shadows.

“Walk back a few steps,” I say, squeezing my thighs around Simon’s head to keep my balance as he does. I brace one hand against the ceiling, and the other against the string, and pull.

The ceiling moves.

Not much. Barely an inch. The tile swings down like a trapdoor, but it’s padlocked shut. I grab my own phone and shine a light directly into the gap. 

There’s a box.

I manage to coax it out of the narrow gap and around the chain and lock. Once I do, I tell Simon to put me down.

SIMON

“Fucking hell, mate. How the fuck did you figure that out?”

“It’s the way some attics are built,” he says. “A string coming down from the ceiling that you pull. It unfolds a staircase when you swing open the trapdoor.”

I shake my head in disbelief. Baz shrugs. “Daphne’s sister’s house has one of these. I’m surprised you’ve never encountered one.”

“Never lived in a house before, have I,” I grumble. I take the box from Baz’s hand and set it on the ground. I sit down next to it and examine it in the light.

It’s a wooden box, not locked or anything - just held closed by a clasp. Inside, we find odds and ends - a bookmark, movie tickets, even a pressed, dried flower in a plastic bag.

“This is well creepy,” I comment. “D’you think there were like, incestuous siblings trapped up here?”

“I wish I could definitely say no,” Baz replies, voice cautious as he slips his fingers further inside. “Oh - there’s a paper.” He smooths the folds against his thigh, then holds his phone so we can both read it.

I don’t know if anyone will ever find this, or if they do, whether they’ll bother to read it. We have locked away our room so no one can disturb it, and hidden the key. If you see eye to eye with us, maybe you’ll be able to find it.

Best of luck.

Hydra and the Dragon

“Oh my god,” I say. “Treasure.”

“It’s not treasure,” Baz says, but he can’t hide the tremble of excitement in his voice. “Why would they just hide away _treasure_?”

“Do you hear yourself? That’s what people do with treasure. Like, that’s the whole point of it.”

“Well, anyway,” he says. “It seems like it’s going to be bloody impossible to find this key.”

“It’s a riddle. I’m sure a swot like you could solve it. I got us up here; it’s time you started pulling your weight.”

Baz elbows me. “I might feel more comfortable if we weren’t up in the creepy attic, reading this by flashlight.”

I dust off my knees and stand up. “You’re right.”

We still don’t do the reasonable thing, which is go to our room. Instead, we head to Baz’s car and turn on the little overhead light and the heating.

“See eye to eye,” Baz murmurs. “Well, a cupola is historically a watchtower.”

“So it’s just a reference to the cupola,” I say. “That’s obvious, innit?”

“I suppose.”

“Why does it say the hydra? Hydra’s from a Greek myth, right? Or is it from Marvel?”

“I was about to be impressed by you for the first time in my life, and then you had to say _that_.”

I roll my eyes.

We muse over it for a while. Baz Googles stuff, and I send a photo of the note to Penny to see if she can help decode it. She’s strangely flat in her responses, and I give up quickly, a bit hurt.

“C’mon, I’m hungry. Let’s go to the Christmas market - I’ve still not got you your gift,” I say. Baz nods, and starts the car.

BAZ

The Christmas market near Watford is, as expected on Christmas Day, fairly barren. A smattering of stalls remain to serve the procrastinators.

Simon tugs me to a jewelry stall. It’s not expensive; everything appears to be plated costume jewelry.

“Look,” he says, and he’s holding a gold pin engraved with a surprisingly ornate celestial map. “You like stars, right? I always see you reading about them. Penny was so jealous during the term that you were in her Astronomy class. She said you knew every single constellation.”

I nearly choke on the force of my own embarrassment. I struggle to regain the composure to utter an icy “I suppose.”

“Never mind - it was dumb,” Simon says, and moves to return it to the table, but I catch his wrist before he can. 

“No, actually, you’re right. It’s perfect.”

Snow grins, digs out some crumpled bills from his pocket, and pays for it.

I pin it to the inside lining of my coat, right over my heart. If Snow catches my sentimentality, he’s too kind to comment.

At any rate, I’m trying to preserve a much more embarrassing secret - one that, I tell myself, I will take to the grave. Because I’m an eternal disappointment to myself, I cave after ten minutes of snogging in the car.

“This one’s Lyra,” I say, connecting the dots between three moles on his neck with my finger. “And this is Delphinus. And this...” I push Snow’s t-shirt a bit higher up to reveal the pattern of moles on his ribcage. “This is Ursa Minor. The little bear, or the little dipper.”

“You’re such a show-off,” Simon says, but his cheeks are tinged with red and he looks a bit kiss-drunk, so I don’t think he really minds. “And you know these off the top of your head? Like if we were to go outside tonight and look at the stars, you’d be able to point them out and everything?”

“Well, most of them aren’t in the sky right now,” I explain. “Either because we’re in the wrong season, or the wrong hemisphere.” 

“One time I stayed in a care home in the countryside outside Lancashire, and there was a window in the room I was staying in. Every night I snuck out of bed to stand by it and look at the stars. When I wasn’t at Watford, that was the only time I could see them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Usually I get placed in London or Essex or someplace else that there’s too many lights.”

“Hampshire’s good for stargazing,” I say. “But I think Watford is better. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and we’ve got the--”

I trail off and Simon lifts his head, looking confused. “Got what?”

“The astronomy tower,” I breathe. “The cupola and the astronomy tower - they’re the highest points at Watford, and they’re built level to one another. ‘Eye to eye’.” And Draco and Hydra are both constellations.”

Simon nods, his body buzzing with excitement. “The key - it’s in the astronomy tower!”

“It’s our best guess,” I reply.

By the time we return to Watford, late afternoon has bled into evening. The way up the Astronomy tower is treacherous. It’s a narrow staircase, made of stones, built into the side of the tower. It winds around the tower, all the way to the top. 

The telescopes and other equipment are kept inside the tower. There’s an elevator there, too; I rode in it with Rhys when I hurt my ankle.

Halfway up the tower, Simon looks backwards and pouts. “Remember when you pushed me down these stairs?”

“I didn’t push you. You instigated it, I punched you in self defence, and you _fell_ ,” I counter, although the memory makes me a little ill. Fortunately, he drops it - likely because we’re both out of breath. I can see little puffs of air leaving his mouth. Because he’s a mouth breather. (I want to swallow them.)

The sun dips below the horizon as we reach the top of the tower. We stand on the side facing the cupola. Simon walks right up to the railing of the tower and looks out over it. I walk up behind him and wind my arms around his waist, kissing his neck.

“You’re distracting,” Simon grumbles, so I turn him around and walk backwards. He ends up pressing me against the door to the inside of the tower and kissing me. He’s so warm. I slip my cold hands into his coat-sleeves and he yelps when he feels my fingers.

“Now who’s being distracting,” I say. Simon cups my hands in his and blows on my fingers to warm them.

“You started it.”

“That excuse never worked on Miss Possibelf.”

“She’s not here now, is she?” His smile is wicked.

I push him away. (Softly, this time. I don’t actually want him to fall down the stairs.) I pull open the door and walk inside.

“Alright. You take that side, I’ll take this one. Go through it carefully, considering anywhere someone could hide a key.”

We actually focus this time. I don’t know how long it takes, but outside, the stars come out in full darkness. We’re working only by the red overhead lights of the telescope room.

We should hurry, or else my parents are going to call me to check on us - or worse, call the Bunces and figure out we’re not where we claimed to be. (Simon then assures me that the Bunces never answer their telephone.)

I grumble as I look through the contents of a drawer for the tenth time.

“I can’t find anything,” Simon sighs. “Maybe it’s outside?”

“Where would it be out there? There’s nowhere to hide something.”

I follow him outside anyway. He points up at the stars. “Tell me what that constellation is.”

I slip my hand under his sleeve, stroking over the arrangement of moles on his wrist. “Cassiopeia.”

He sighs contentedly, and I move away before we waste any more time snogging.

We split up again, crawling over the stones, looking in corners and cracks in the mortar. I endeavour to leave no stone unturned. And then something occurs to me.

SIMON

“Snow. You’re not clumsy. You can be clueless, and a bit of git, but I’ve seen you fence. Your footwork is impeccable.”

I squint at Baz’s imposing figure. “Is that a compliment? Baz, do you think something about me that’s not unkind? Are you going soft?”

“Shut up. I’d never admit that if it weren’t important. When you fell down the stairs--”

“When you pushed me--”

“You didn’t fall of your own accord. There was something...” And he bends down with his phone flashlight on, and points at a protruding bit of rock.

“That. The stone here is loose from the others. You must have stumbled on it in fifth year.”

I chew my lip and squat down to wiggle the stone. “Alright. But this is an old school.”

“Yes, but look. This stone is pushed up, and not even mortared in. If there was expansion or contraction, or just warping from water damage, the mortar would still be somewhat intact, and it wouldn’t be so evenly displaced. This whole tile is just set a couple of centimeters above the rest. The kind of difference you wouldn’t notice until you were struggling to get your footing and bumped into it.”

He slips his fingers under and tugs, but it doesn’t budge. I help him, and slowly we drag off the slab of stone.

Underneath it a sheet of packing foam, wrapped around a key.

“Oh my god,” Baz says.

“Holy shit,” I add. “I can’t believe it’s here.”

“I can’t believe it’s _real_. I mean, if it is real, I suppose,” he says.

“What, you think a different person hid a different key in the astronomy tower? For what, another riddle?”

He laughs through his nose. I like when he does that; it seems unintentional. Soft. Not all pressed and proper like Baz usually is.

I pick up the keyring, almost reverently. “I can’t believe it’s in such good condition.”

Baz shrugs. “I guess Styrofoam really is indestructible.”

The journey to the stairwell is much more treacherous in the darkness, but I let Baz go first, shining the light ahead of him so that he can see, then follow him by feel.

We hold our breaths as Baz pushes the key into the padlock. It turns, and then all I can hear is the slow clinking and dragging of the chain as it’s pulled away. Then Baz is opening the attic door fully and unfolding the staircase. I follow him up.

The attic looks like a barebones little cottage on the inside. The cupola takes up half the ceiling, and it’s cold enough that I have to stuff my hands in my pockets. The fireplace still has ashes scattered around it.

There’s a mattress on the floor, wrapped in light blue floral sheets and covered in a knitted blanket. The walls are decorated - with taped-up watercolors, bits of poetry, and Polaroid pictures. 

Pictures of two women. 

My eye is drawn to the photo in the center of a wall - the two of them together. One is taller, with long hair so silvery it looks blue, and wearing a flowy dress. The other woman has fiery ginger hair, and she’s dressed in high-waisted jeans; her red shawl is covered in beads. Her fingers are covered in rings, and her wrists in bracelets. She’s wearing no less than three necklaces. Her eyeglasses are sharp, colourful cat-eyes, but instead of looking like a kooky teacher, she looks a bit dangerous. The taller one has her arm around the ginger, and she’s kissing her cheek.

“I found some letters,” Baz says, holding up a wooden box. I settle on the mattress next to him as he opens one.

_  
Cordelia,_

_The last few nights since our argument have been torture. I’m sorry that I can be so stubborn; I’m sorry that I hurt you. All I want is to have you in my arms again._

_We may not always get along, my dearest Cordelia, but that isn’t what love is about. Love is about finding one’s equal. A person in whose company you could spend lifetimes without getting bored. Love is about passion - not just the heat of lovemaking (though I’m quite fond of that, too) - but the rapture of knowing and being known; of having an unconditional ally at your side; of fighting and crying, laughing and making up. I know that I’ll never grow tired of you, Cordelia. I’ll never take you for granted. I will stand by you through any storm, for the rest of your life, if you will have me._

_I’ll be waiting for you in our attic tonight, darling. Let’s not remain separate any longer._

_Love,_

_Margaret._

BAZ

We stare at the letter, Simon in confusion, and me in horror. The pieces are starting to fall in place.

“That’s well gay, isn’t it,” Simon says, and I manage to choke a laugh out without spilling any tears. The room feels like a vacuum.

I finally find my voice enough to say, “Cordelia. That’s Headmistress Blue’s first name. And that’s her, in the pictures.”

“Yeah…”

I breathe faster. “That’s why she was dismissed. That’s what my mother was talking about, Simon, when she said that Headmistress Blue had made choices that weren’t ‘compatible with Watford as an institution.’ She was talking about Headmistress Blue being _queer_.”

I clench and unclench my fists. I won’t cry. I’m more angry with myself for being surprised by the knowledge that my mother was a homophobe, than by the fact itself.

“Shh,” Simon says, and now he’s running his hands through my hair.

“My mother would have hated me for being what I am,” I spit. “Who I am.” My father’s right to look at me like I’m a disappointment, like a blemish on my mother’s legacy.

Simon grabs my shoulders firmly and looks me in the eye. “She wouldn’t have hated you. She would have loved you. She _does_ love you.”

“You don’t know that,” I say. My voice cracks, and despite my best efforts, a few tears spill down my cheeks. “You’re just saying that. You don’t know.”

“This happened nearly twenty years ago. That’s a long time. She would have learned, and she would have _changed_. She loved you enough for that, Baz, I swear. I know she did. I saw the way she looked at you in those photographs, like you were her whole world. And she tried to defend Headmistress Blue. She called Blue her friend. She would have loved you, Baz, every part of you.”

He’s holding me in his arms, and they’re so warm and firm around me. I can’t believe what’s happening around me. Nothing seems real.

So I decide that I don’t care if what Simon is saying is true or not - I _choose_ to make that real, too.

“We found our way into the cupola,” I say wetly. I turn to face him, and bring our lips close together. “We did it, you absolute nightmare.”

“We did,” Simon says, cradling my chin with one hand and wiping my tears with the other. “We should leave something behind.”

He pulls away, and points at the mess left on the bedside table. There’s a Polaroid camera. He grabs it and hands it to me.

I wipe my face with my spare handkerchief and settle behind him on the mattress. I rest my chin on his shoulder and hold the camera above us at arm’s length. We smile, and the camera clicks, and emits an unexpected burst of light.  
When it develops, Simon bursts into laughter. The photo is orange and yellow; the contours of our faces are barely visible. I’ve cut out the bottom half of Simon’s face, and I’m squinting strangely at the flash.

“It’s awful,” I say.

“It’s perfect.” He wedges the corner of the photo into the baseboard so that it stands up against the wall. “There. Now we’re here forever, too.”


	4. Home

SIMON

“Simon, this is — incredible.” Penny sifts through the box one more time. “Look, this note was written on the back of an old Physics exam from the nineties!” She shows me the blank pages, which besides for a change in font look exactly the same. I don’t get why she’s so excited.

I’m not complaining, though. It’s nice to see Penny smiling.

*

I went to visit her in Hounslow on Boxing Day. I wanted to tell her all about my cupola discovery, and she hadn’t been answering my texts. I figured she was busy or something. She’s been busy a lot lately.

Baz drove me there, then went to visit his aunt who also lives in London. I don’t know what I expected, but being let in by a strangely concerned Mrs. Bunce was not it.

She shooed me up the narrow stairs into Penny’s room, handing me a plate of chicken biryani to deliver. (Penny hadn’t left her room all day, for breakfast or lunch.) When I walked in, I found her sitting up in her bed, dressed in a Watford tee shirt and pyjama bottoms, reading a thick book.

“Hey,” I said, setting the biryani down on her bedside table and ignoring the rumbling in my stomach. I had a big breakfast at Pitch Manor before coming here, but the food smells heavenly. If Penny wasn’t interested, i would have been happy to finish it off for her.

“Hey,” she said, setting down her book. It was a huge hardback - the collected works of Shakespeare printed in tiny text.

She was upset. Even I was emotionally intelligent enough to figure that out. But I didn’t know what to say. Penny is my best friend, but neither of us is very good at feelings.

I racked my brain for something to say. I wished I’d paid more attention when we learned about healthy communication in home economics, but I had been too busy glaring at Baz and Agatha. They’d been paired as conversation partners.

Penny broke the silence first. “Sorry I haven’t been responding to your texts.”

“It’s okay,” I replied. “I figured you were busy with Christmas stuff.”

She picked at a thread on her trousers. “I mean, not really. The thing is, Micah and I broke up.”

“What?” I stared at her. “Seriously? On Christmas?”

“Christmas Eve. He FaceTimed me from Chicago.”

“But he moved all the way to England for you,” I protested. She shrugged.

“He wanted to move here anyway. He said that our relationship had been rocky, and now that we’d tried to be together in the same place, we’d both seen that the relationship doesn’t work.”

“But you’ve been together for years,” I said. “Did you think that the relationship wasn’t working?”

“No,” she admits. “I thought things were going well. God, Simon, I’ve been such a fool. I’ve been ignoring my friends to spend every weekend with him. I’ve been listening to every little thing he says, trying to be exactly what he wanted. I’m a disaster. I’m exactly the kind of girl I hate. I’m an awful feminist.”

“Penny, that’s ridiculous,” I argued. “You’re not a disaster. And you’re not a fool. It’s all because of him, not you. I mean, why didn’t he break up with you sooner if he felt that way? Instead of over video on Christmas Eve?”

“I don’t know,” she says with a sniff. “But he has a new girlfriend at Oxford already. Erin.”

And then she started crying in earnest. I did what I’d done when Baz was upset - I just hugged her, and let her cry it out.

*

“It is cool,” I say lamely, pretending to study the exam booklet. She rolls her eyes. “You don’t think so.”

“I don’t think so,” I reply, and we both laugh. I study the note scribbled on the booklet. Margaret’s name in the greeting, and Headmistress Blue’s signature.

“I wonder if the two of them are still together,” I say. “Or if Headmistress Blue is even alive.”

Penny looks at me curiously. “Yes, she’s alive. She lived in Cardiff.”

“What?” I say. 

“Headmistress Blue was still in charge when my mum and dad went to Watford. Mum is friends with her on Facebook.”

I nod, turning the note over in my hands.

*

“Stop making that infernal noise.”

My fingers are tapping a nervous beat against the center console of Baz’s car. I try to calm them, but It barely takes five seconds for the twitching to start again.

Baz rolls his eyes and takes one hand off the steering wheel so he can hold mine. I squeeze it gratefully.

“If we get in an accident because you were holding my left hand hostage, it will be entirely your fault,” Baz says, but he’s smiling out of the corner of his mouth. I resist the urge to lean over and kiss it - driving safety, and all that.

Finally, we pull up to a little side street and Baz finds a spot to park along it. The entire block is composed of connected townhouses, with grey brick or stucco fronts and thick off-white frames on all the doors and windows. Each house has got a little paved front yard surrounded by a low boundary wall made of stone.

“It looks peaceful,” Baz muses. He turns off the car and unbuckles his safety belt. I carefully hand the wooden box on my lap to Baz and exit the car.

“House number 61, right?”

Baz nods. As soon as we approach the single bright yellow-stucco house on the street, he freezes.

“Maybe we should go back,” he says. “This is a little strange, right?”

“We can’t go back, Baz,” I say. “We already called. They’re expecting us. You don’t want to leave some little old ladies hanging, do you?”

“You’re right,” he grumbles. We walk through the gap in the boundary wall and knock on the front door.

I immediately recognise the woman who answers the door. Even though her fiery ginger hair is silver now, her hands and wrists are covered in jewelry, just as in the photos.

“Hello, lads,” she says. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Hello, hello,” a deeper female voice calls from inside.

The house is packed with books, objects and trinkets. It’s like walking into a dragon’s lair. I manage to pick my way across the sitting room by following Baz.

An old woman stands up from her floral armchair with surprising agility. She’s dressed in a blue-green skirt and there’s a novel open on the table beside her.

“Headmistress Blue,” Baz says, shaking the woman’s hand. “It’s an honour.”

“Oh, please. Ms. Blue is fine.” Her eyes scan his face, and she smiles. “You’re the spitting image of Natasha Pitch.”

He laughs awkwardly. I step forward. “Simon Snow, ma’am. I’m Baz’s roommate --”

“Boyfriend,” Baz interrupts. “He’s my boyfriend.”

Ms. Blue smiles and motions at the overstuffed floral couch to her right. “Have a seat, boys.”

The other woman joins us shortly after, holding a tray of tea and biscuits. Once she’s poured our cups of tea, she settles down in the chair across from Ms. Blue.

“I’m Margaret, by the way,” she says gruffly. Her paint-splattered jeans have a hole in the knee that doesn’t seem intentional. “No Miss Drake from either of you. That’s for former pupils only.”

“Margaret,” Baz says, and introduces me this time. (So he can say “my boyfriend” again, I bet. He’s such a sap.)

Ms. Blue and Margaret start asking questions about school, and our plans for the future. We tell them that we’re both headed to uni in London - me at UCL and Baz at LSE. They ask if we’re planning to be roommates again, and nod approvingly when we tell them that we’re giving ourselves some space at first. (“Very responsible of you,” Margaret adds.)

Baz and I only mentioned the bare facts of the whole story in the email we sent Margaret, so we fill them in, from start to finish. By the end, Ms. Blue is dabbing at her eyes gently with her handkerchief, and Margaret has shifted to the floor next to her armchair, holding her hand.

“Like we said in the email, we understand if you don’t want to dredge up painful memories,” Baz says, but Ms. Blue shakes her head.

“No. They are painful, but it’s important to talk about them. I appreciate your research efforts and the fact that you reached out to us.”

She clears her throat and goes on. “You two surmised correctly from Natasha’s diaries that in the early nineties, there was a new professor at Watford. His name was David Mage and he taught European history.”

“He had the worst moustache,” Margaret adds.

“He was interested in all sorts of reforms, and I was, perhaps, not as receptive as I ought to have been. I had the trustees to consider, and he was the kind of man one did not enjoy working with. He had excellent ideas, many of which went on to be implemented, but he was...untrustworthy.”

“Meanwhile,” Margaret continues, “I had just turned forty-one, divorced my husband, and started teaching physics at Watford.”

“We fell in love,” Ms. Blue says, glancing down at Margaret with a smile. “It didn’t matter that I was twenty years older, or that she worked for me, or that we were both women. We didn’t think about any of those things, though we likely should have.

“Teachers had dated one another before. If we had been a man and a woman, we could have easily circumvented the issue of conflict of interest by disclosing our relationship to the other administrators. Margaret would have been supervised by someone else, and that would have been the end of it. Of course, Watford was a very conservative institution, and we were not comfortable with anyone knowing that we were together.

“I do wonder what it would have been like if I had been honest from the start,” Ms. Blue muses. “If I had controlled the narrative, instead of Mage, maybe things would have been different.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Margaret says. “Davy wanted you gone, and he would have found any means to sabotage you.” She turns to face the two of us. “He found out about the attic. He searched it, and called a meeting of the trustees the very next day.”

“He made some very baseless accusations, the likes of which I won’t repeat to you today, against myself and Miss Drake,” Ms. Blue says. “While the trustees and the other teachers were clear that they did not believe any of it, they felt that it was too risky to the school’s reputation to have a lesbian as headmistress. They thought that parents would withdraw their children, and such.”

“So they fired us,” Margaret says. “We barely had time to pack our things. I locked up the attic and hid the key, so that they wouldn’t be able to get in there again.”

“Not long after, Davy was fired for having an affair with an eighth year girl. Natasha offered me the position of Headmistress again, and offered to reinstate Margaret to her post. But though we loved Watford, it would have been too painful to return. We’d settled in Wales by then, and we had new jobs and no desire to look back. And we knew Natasha would make an excellent headmistress.” Ms. Blue pauses to look at Baz. “I’m so sorry about your mother. She was a lovely woman, and she loved you very much.”

“She didn’t defend you, though,” Baz says. “I read her diary. She thought the dismissal was valid.”

“But she invited us back,” Margaret counters. “She saw the error of her ways. She apologised for her part in it, and we remained friends afterwards.”

I squeeze Baz’s hand, and he glances at me with a tight smile.

“We brought you some of your things from the attic,” I say, handing the box to Margaret. “Just photos and letters, like you asked for in the email.”

Margaret opens it eagerly. “Oh, look at you,” she says, holding up an old photo of Ms. Blue. “You used to be such a looker. What happened?”

“Piss off, Maggie,” Ms. Blue says with a tinkling laugh. Baz and I gasp at the profanity and burst into giggles as well.

We spend a few hours there. Margaret serves excellent sandwiches, and the four of us explore the contents of the box. Margaret and Ms. Blue interrogate Baz and me until we’re forced to retell the entire story of our rivalry-turned-relationship.

“You should come visit us when we move to London in the fall,” I say when we’re making our goodbyes. “And Baz can drive us up again to visit you two, right?”

“Of course,” he says. When we reach the door, Margaret and Ms. Blue envelop both of us in a hug.

“If you need anything, you know who to call,” Ms. Blue says sternly.

Then, her expression softens.

“I want you to know that in spite of its difficult beginning, Margaret and I have been incredibly happy. Our lives have been more incredible than I could have ever imagined, and I have absolutely no regrets about any of it. You will get that happy ending - whether you’re together, or apart.”

*

As we walk to the car, I hold Baz’s hand tightly, and before we break to go to our opposite sides, I kiss it. He stares at his fingers, and then at me.

“I love you,” he says.

I don’t have time to feel surprised - I repeat it back right away, like it’s already muscle memory. “I love you, too.”

It takes us far longer than two hours to make it back to Watford from Cardiff. (Mostly because we stay parked on Ms. Blue’s street, snogging in the car and saying those three words over and over again, for a full half hour before we get on our way.)

I don’t mind the delay. I used to hate being away from Watford. Even a late train at the end of the summer would devastate me.

I’ve only got a few weeks left at Watford now. I know that I’ll miss it like a lost limb, but I also know there’s going to be a future for me beyond it.

I still have the friends I found there - Penny, who’s going to be my flatmate in London like we always planned. Agatha, who is going to uni in California, but will only be a phone call away. And Baz: my roommate, my enemy, and now my _boyfriend_. 

Watford may be my home for now, but soon I’ll be somewhere else. And that’s okay, because as Baz’s mum used to say, everything I love is a match in my heart. All I need to do is light it, and blow on the tinder, and I know that I’ll be able to carry on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for bearing with me through my first ever exchange, and first multi-chapter fic! 
> 
> Say hi on tumblr!


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